


The Same Ghost Every Night

by redtypewriter



Series: White Black Gray [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Oh the paragon shepard and archangel dichotomy, Paragon Shepard (Mass Effect), emotional ghosts!, post me1 pre me2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29823789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtypewriter/pseuds/redtypewriter
Summary: She's gone, but Garrus still sees her sometimes.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: White Black Gray [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194470
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The Same Ghost Every Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hey look it's Mass Effect fanfic in the year 2021! Just replayed the whole series and it had never struck me before how interesting the Paragon influence on Garrus in the first game when paired with all the Archangel stuff. End of the first game he's saying that I've gotten through to him and rules are cool, actually, and then next time you see him he's gone full vigilante. With Renegade Shepard, he's just doing what his cool lawless friend taught him, but paragon...I just feel like there's some guilt there, even if he is proud of what he's doing. Also the title is from a Wolf Parade song bc I'm bad at titles.

“Quitting then? Just like that?” 

It wasn’t the first time he had seen her since she died. He hadn’t been sleeping, he figured it was micro-naps and lucid dreams. It wasn’t her, though. This Shepard was mocking, a constant voice of all the ways he would be disappointing his lawful mentor if she was still alive. He knew he was, he knew she wouldn’t think he was living up to his potential, but it still hurt. In some ways, he treasured the vision, the only way he would hear her voice or see her face outside of an old vid, though he couldn’t help but notice as he forgot a little bit every day, her face would change, a little more generic every time, but still undoubtedly her. He wondered if one day it would be unrecognizable, and his inner criticisms would finally just bear the face of a stranger. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt as badly.

“Don’t tell me it’s because of that ‘red tape’ bullshit again.” She said, sounding bored. He tried to ignore her, but he couldn’t. Maybe he just wished he could talk to her again, and if fighting with his conscience was the only way to do it, then so be it.

“You followed the rules every day of your damn life until you stole the Normandy and saved the damn galaxy, and they still punished you for it. You still ended up dead. What does it matter what I do?”

“So the second that I’m too dead to be disappointed, everything I ever said to you stops meaning anything?” She sounded angry. Garrus just felt tired.

“Never said it didn’t mean anything. I said it never did you any damn good.” He said, and then woke up.

-

“You’re life sure would’ve been easier if I had just been murdered by some mercs, huh?”

Garrus sighed, looking out the window of the shuttle taking him to Omega. Looking at the space that had sucked her out of the Normandy and killed her. It was either that, or looking at an angry ghost.

“Can’t fight mysterious unknown evil aliens, might as well get away with some good old barely justified murder to work out your anger.” 

Garrus growled at that, still fighting not to respond.

“Oooh, down, big guy. I’m just saying what we’re both thinking. Vengeance is _so_ much easier than finding your own way.”

He kept ignoring her, but she didn’t seem to like it. She couldn’t touch him, she wasn’t real. Suddenly, she was next to him in an instant, vying for his attention away from the stars.

“Garrus. How am I supposed to tell you that you’re _not even_ finding your own way if you don’t even look at me?” She put her hand in front of his face and snapped several times to get his attention.

He looked. Her face was twisted in a face he had never seen the real Shepard make. 

“That’s better. I hope I know what you’re doing, Vakarian. I mean, I know that you don’t, but you’d better figure it out fast.”

Then she was gone.

-

Garrus almost felt happy. Accomplished, if nothing else. He had picked up a few people around, building his own little team, it almost reminded him of old times on the Normandy, even if he felt guilty for associating Shepard with what he did now, even just in his memories. No matter how much good he did, he knew that he’d forever be plagued with knowing that she would be disappointed in the way he decided to do it.

“It’s cute, how you’re pretending to be me.” The ghost said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He scolded himself, long since claiming to be done responding to the specter of the spectre.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you using the pep-talk voice. Picking up strays with grand declarations of changing things. You’ve even given the imposing look a few times.”

“The imposing look?” He asked, though he already knew.

“This one.” And she tilted her head forward and squinted a little, squaring her shoulders. It didn’t burn the way it should’ve, though.

He scoffed. “The fact that I learned things from you doesn’t mean I’m pretending to be anything I’m not.” He said, unsure why he was still talking to the vision.

“Oh, you’re not? Are you sure about that, Archangel?” She said and laughed. He had never heard the real Shepard laugh cruelly, he wasn’t sure how he got it down so perfectly in his head that it seemed like the last thing about her that was still perfectly preserved. Maybe it was because it was his own invention.

“I didn’t make up the name.” 

She snorted. “No, but you loved it. Drinking with your little team here I recall you giving Archangel a toast. You never were one for humility were you, Vakarian?”

“Go away.” He muttered.

“You can do better than this, Garrus.”

“If you’re just here to tell me that she would be disappointed, you don’t have to. Trust me, I know that she would be.” He snapped

“Of course you know that. Why else would I keep showing up?”

-

  
  


His team was dead, he had been under constant attack for four days, he was being held together by medigel and stims, and there was still a steady stream of mercs coming down the tunnel. His team was dead, and every merc on Omega knew he was alone.

“What would she think if she could see you now?” Her ghost said. He hadn’t seen it in almost a year, fitting that she would be there to escort him to the other side.

“Let me guess, you’d think that I died for something worthless, that if I had just listened to you and done things the right way, I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“I mean. That’s what _I_ think. What do I know, though, right? I’m not really Commander Shepard.” She said in a voice that was just the best version of hers that he could remember.

He laughed bitterly. “Trust me, I know you’re not her.”

“Because she’s dead.”

“Yeah. She is.” Garrus tossed down four or five proximity mines and leaned back against the railing to catch his breath. He looked at the phantom. Almost Shepard, maybe, if you squinted. If you didn’t really remember her that well anymore, you’d say it was her.

“Rules never did her any good, and rebelling is what’s about to kill you. You really were quite the pair.”

Garrus laughed, more genuinely this time, wishing the face he saw was really hers, but looking to it anyway, the vision that had existed just to mock him for two years, the last friend he had left.

“Maybe we both should’ve learned to see a little more gray.” He muttered, looking back over his shoulder when he heard one of the mines explode.

“At least you’ll get to see her soon.” Was the last words he ever heard the ghost say.

-

She was right, in the end. Three more days, naps of only a few minutes at a time, barely any food, mercs pouring in near constantly, and then there she was. He was angry at first, wondering how it got all the way down there into his sights, but he turned his attention to real targets.

She burst through the door, and he wondered when the ghost had started interacting with objects.

“Archangel?” Said Commander Shepard’s actual voice, the power behind it bringing her memory back to him in perfect detail. Not the watered-down memory he had been feeding off of for the last two years that muttered painful things to him in his darkest moments. Behind her visor, he could see Her Face. Her real face, her scars were gone, but her jawline was sharper than he remembered, her eyes harder, every part of her vivid and present and _real._

He took off his helmet and looked at her face to face, and he knew this time it wasn’t just a bad memory.


End file.
